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Anger & Conflict

There is someone I genuinely do not like and I am not going to start liking them any time soon. Is it enough to act well toward them while I feel nothing?


Old TestamentExodus 23:4-5

If thou meet thine enemy's ox or his ass going astray, thou shalt surely bring it back to him again. If thou see the ass of him that hateth thee lying under his burden, and wouldest forbear to help him, thou shalt surely help with him.

This sits in the case law given to a newly freed people learning how to be neighbours. The scenario is concrete: your enemy's ox has wandered off, or his donkey has gone down under its load. You are told to bring the animal back and to help lift the load. Nobody is asked to feel warmly first. The law starts with what your hands do, and it assumes the dislike is still sitting there.

New TestamentLuke 6:35

But love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest: for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil.

Luke records Jesus teaching on level ground to a mixed crowd, many of them poor and living under occupation, with real enemies rather than mildly annoying colleagues. Love your enemies, do good, lend expecting nothing back. Every one of those is an action you can perform today without any change of feeling. Jesus consistently commands behaviour rather than emotion, which is a mercy when your feelings have not caught up.


A path forward

  1. Do one concrete good turn for them this week that costs you something small and that they will probably never notice.

  2. Stop rehearsing your case against them to other people. Feeling follows attention, and every retelling deepens the groove.

  3. Bring the dislike to God honestly rather than pretending it away: I do not like this person, help me act rightly anyway. That is a prayer he can work with.


Closing verse

My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth.

- 1 John 3:18

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